U.S. lifts Palestinian embargo

Why is no one acknowledging that the new prime minister, Salam Fayyad, is *not* Fatah, but is a University of Texas-trained economist who has spent most of his working life at the World Bank, the IMF, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

I suppose that if Mahmoud Abbas named Paul Wolfowitz's Palestinian girlfriend as prime minister, she'd get tarred with the same brush.

Condi intends to fund both:

"Condi Rice has pledged $86 million to Fatah, the Palestinian terror organization formerly headed by Yasser Arafat. Condi’s claim, that Fatah is a moderate bulwark against Hamas, hinges on Arafat’s tradition of lying through his teeth while supporing Israel’s destruction with wave after wave of suicide bombing. That Fatah and Hamas are made of the same cloth is undeniable. Hamas just refuses to lie.

Buried in the news is a little noticed gift to Hamas, again courtesy of the American taxpayer. The Washington Post has a single line burried in the middle of an article: “Rice said an additional $40 million will be contributed to the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees in Gaza.” The people of Gaza overwhelmingly support the unapologetic terrorist organization, Hamas, which draws its members from the general population. Disguising support for Hamas as humanitarian aid has precedent."

read the rest

What load of Foreign policy crap. The US didn't lift the embargo on Palestine. They lifted it on its collaborators in the West Bank and tightened it on Gaza where the true men of resistance exist. So take your lies and spoon-feed them to your ingnorant readership.

El Che Vive!

It's like the Cold War where both sides picked which dictators to support. When asked about why the US was supporting a tyrant (somewhere), a US official once said (in more colorful language): he's a tyrant, but he's OUR tyrant.

Fouad Ajami points out the difference between Fatah and Hamas: one is secular, the other Islamist. That's it.

Both want to destroy Israel. Both would destroy the US if they could.

We need a worldwide 'Stop The Jizya' caampaign to end this perverted misuse of OUR money.

The U.S. will not aid a democratically elected Hamas? There goes all our efforts in establishing democracy in the Middle East along with Billions of dollars. No wonder Muslims don't trust the U.S. Go figure

Bomb the terrorists! Kill the terrorists! But what about Hezboolahaha?

Hezbollah controls
Beirut attacks Israel
- Lebanon at WAR
.

Indeed, as distasteful and dangerous it is to support one gang of murderous thugs in order to weaken the other gang, isn't that the kind of thing Hugh and others advocate when talking about exploiting the fissures among jihadis? I wish we had the resources (of will mostly; we have the military might) to slam all the belligerents hard, but until then, hasnt withdrawal from Gaza and then support of the weaker gang been a success in conveying the situation to more of the western public?
I see now headlines "israel faces refugees from Gaza", maybe these refugees can negotiate a two-state solution with Hamas, no wait how many states is that?

kuchuklambat,

I had the same reaction. Palestinian civil war is here. Aren't we just helping to keep it going...
Hugh?

$#@*&^!*&^%, I don't want to give my tax dollars to ANY foreign country! Who will run for POTUS on that plank? We would have enough money for us if we stopped the "rent a friend" project. Stupid politicians.

El Jimmy Carter Vive!

The farce of supporting the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, consisting of suitably be-suited grey-faced men, with emphasis on the plausible technocratic facade presented by Fayyad, whom a Muslim or Muslim-apologist poster above makes somuch of, in order to "reward" it for something -- infuriates. For what are we rewarding Fatah? For its leaders, from Arafat on down, being corrupt and building villas, and parcelling out all that Western Jizyah-aid to themselves and keeping it away from those in Hamas? For having been so easily defeated, and so publicly humiliated, by the far smaller forces of Hamas, while Fatah had three or four times as many men under arms in Gaza, and had been receiving all kinds of weaponry, and training (see General Dayton's "mission") from the Americans, but ran away anyway -- ran away, because Hamas consists of True Believers, and Fatah of men on the make, men who are happy to work for Israel's destruction, but have for now chosen to differ with Hamas on timing and tactics, in order to ensure that they keep receiving that Jizyah.

It is a terrible thing, in the ongoing war, to continue to pay, to resume payment, to any Muslims, by any Infidels, of what is essentially a Jizyah -- that is, a payment which the Muslim recipients believe is their due, and for which they show no gratitude, for as it is their due, to stop it is to behave against the will of Allah, for Infidels should be paying these sums, and when they stop, the stoppage of the transfer of billions of dollars from Infidel taxpayers to Muslim recipients who have long been used to being on sort of dole or another, whether it be the Jizyah from Christians and Jews extracted, once their lands were conquered, over the last 1350 years, or the vast wealth taken from the enslaved (or murdered by the tens of millions) Hindus in India, or the vast wealth received from Hindus and Buddhists elsewhere, in Central Asia, in the East Indies, everywhere that Islam managed to dominate and Muslims to rule. There is even the disguised Jizyah of the "bumiputra" system in Malaysia. And in Indonesia, the Muslim-dominatd governments have over the past few decades, since the days of the Dutch, and of Sukarno (far more tolerant than Suharto and those following) passed many laws that discriminated against, or even prevented, the rebuilding of churches and temples by those defined as insufficiently "Indonesian" --that is, by the ethnic Chinese (both those born in China and those who have lived in Indonesia for generations) and placed many other constraints on the linguistic, cultural, and religious practices and freedoms of the ethnic, i.e., non-Muslim, Chinese,that systematic legal discrimination being finally removed only in 2000 by the humorful Abdurrahman Wahid, when he was briefly in power, the same Wahid who, as his visit to Israel suggested, is an unusual Believer, if a Believer at all).

The war of self-defense against the Jihad, that is the war that must be fought, by all Infidels, to withstand the state of permanent war that Islam mandates, for all Muslims, against all Infidels -- a state of war if not always open warfare -- should not be called a "war that will take generations" or even "a long war" for both such descriptions miss the point. It is a war without end, but a war that can be made manageable, endurable, if the Infidels, or enough of them, recognize the nature of that war, the promptings of that war, the instruments of that war, and the weaknesses as well as the strengths, within the Camp of Islam, and the way to diminish those strengths (chiefly by diminishing the use of oil and therefore diminishing oil revenues on which Arabs and Muslims are so dependent for their Money Weapon) and to exploit those weaknesses. Chiefly to be recognizaed and exploited are the potential divisions and demoralization of the Camp of Islam arising form the sectarian divide, or Sunni-Shi'a, split, the ethnic divide, or Arab-non-Arab split, and the financial divide, or oil-rich/oil-poor Muslim split.

This is an entirely manageable situtaiton, if the money weapon is diminished and if the rich Arabs are made responsible for sharing their wealth with the poor Arabs (while the Infidels lay down forever, and do not pick up again, not even for a minute, the Infidel Man's Burden), if campaigns of Da'wa are carefully monitored, carefully circumscribed, and countered by anti-Da'wa campaigns that will convey certain disturbing truths about Islam. These truths include the undeniable fact of Islam's about the inculcated hatreds, the view of the world as being permanently divided between Believer and Infidel, with the latter having eventually to submit, as by right, to the former, as well as the habit of mental submission (which explains the absence of scientific investigation, as well as free and skeptical inquiry), and the severe limits placed on both artistic expression and human autonomy, including freedom of conscience, by the collectivist mind-forged-manacled, retrograde, doubly-totalitarian -- in G. H. Bousquet's phrase -- Total System of Islam.

Such a "war" of self-defense can be won, in a sense, by keeping Islam from spreading, by keeping every potential division within the Camp of Islam simmering. The environmental crisis insures that billiions of Westerners who might, for other reasons, be inattentive or indifferent to the menace of Islam, will nonetheless be working, for other reasons, toward a goal of reducing reliance on fossil fuels -- that is, will be working toward a goal which, if achieved, can only weaken the Camp of Islam. That is a good thing. Fewer boots on the damn ground, more lightening raids, when called for, to damage or destroy major weaponry possessed by Muslim states or groups, and end to policies held in thrall to the desire not to offend but rather to placate Muslims, is all to the good.,

The rewarding of Fatah by the Bush Administration, the unseemly haste with which it has done so, disturbs and disgusts. Fatah is no better today than it was yesterday. Its ultimate goal remains the same. The fact that members of Hamas attacked Fatah positions and overran them does not imply any turn toward genuine and permanent acceptance of an Infidel state by Fatah, or for that matter by Muslim Arabs. No such acceptance is possible, and it is silly to work for it. On the other hand, had the government taken advantage of the new situation to declare the "two-state solution" now unworkable, and hinted that "other things would have to be undertaken" and then worked, as it should be working, to make sure that the Infidels around the world understand that the war on Israel is a Lesser Jihad, that any "peace" treaty that Muslims make with Infidel states is a treaty that they believe they not only may but are required to break whenever they, the Muslims, become strong enough (on the model of the Treaty of Al Hudaibiyya, which is the basis of Muslim treaty-making with non-Muslims), if this is understood, so that the continued pressure on Israel to willingly give up more land, and control of the aquifers and the invasion routes, so that Israel, already the state whose people are most imperiled in the world today, lives permanently on the edge of a volcano, is both cruel and stupid. We need Israel, we need Israel for geopolitical reasons (if the Israelis are not pushed back further, they can continue to be a strong ally, militarily, to Infidels, and by example, can continue to be a civilizing example to the Muslim locals), for civilizational reasons (Christians and those who are part of Western civilization that is so connected to Christianity can only be guaranteed access to the Holy Land if Israel retains control, and if the Muslims should ever triumphantly seize it, that would be the end of such access, save on the same terms of abasement that were once in place), for moral reasons (after all that has happened to the most persecuted tribe in human history, the Jews, the damage to Western morality, and morale, if Israel were to be thrown to the Islamic wolves only because Western leaders were at a loss as to know how to handle Islam, and thought that appeasement, paid in the coin of Israeli lives and Israel's existence, was the way to go, those still capable of thought would find all thought intolerable).

Fatah is not "better" than Hamas. Fatah is run by men whose shared goal is not to build a "Palestinian" state so much as it is to build a "state" that will be a way-station on the necessary, inevitable destruction of another state, the intolerable, because Infidel, state of Israel. Fatah differs from Hamas only in two things. First, its leaders are more realistic, in its choice of tactics and its timing. Second, its leaders are eager to turn on the Jizyah tap, because they have lived all their lives not on the fruits of any hard work or entrepreneurial flair or anything like that, either on their own part or that of the so-called "Palestinian" people, but rather on the amounts that long ago Arafat and the PLO, found it could squeeze first, from other Arabs (such as the Saudis), and then, in the early 1990s, found it could extract much more easily, in much larger amounts, from Infidel governments so wiling to believe, just because it was absurd, in the goodness of Arafat and the benign intentions of the peace-processing PLO.

Now would be the perfect time, after that revealing display of the contempt felt for Fatah's corruption, after the trashing even of "beloved" Chairman Arafat's villa (one of so many he possessed, just like all those bank accounts, with those Infidel billions for "Palestinian" aid squirreled away, and now apparently not to be found, for only a few, such as Mahmoud Abbas, know where the money really went), is to do nothing. Do nothing to help out Fatah, and certainly not to turn on the aid tap which means turning on the renewed possiblities for corruption, and for Hamas to point to that corruption as justifying its approach. Do nothing, and let the "Palestinian" cause in all its hideousness and obvious disarray be put on display, for Infidels, even those of the BBC and The Guardian and Le Monde, to begin to realize that the war on Israel is not a "nationalist" struggle as it has been carefully presented, ever since the 1967 defeat brought home to the Muslim Arabs the need to re-package the Lesser Jihad against Israel, and to use against it the refusal of the Arabs to make a real peace, and therefore to use the renamed local Arabs, and those in other countries, as "Palestinians" rather than as "Arabs" or "Arab refugees" -- which is what they had always been called, not least by Arab diplomats and leaders, since 1948.

Part of the waking-up to their own dismal reality and the menace of Islam requires that those in Western Europe realize that the war against Israel is based on Islam, the tenets of Islam, the attitudes and atmospherics of those raised up in societies suffused with Islam. Those attitudes have been adopted as well, even long internalized as part of the coping strategy of menaced dhimmis, by such "Palestinian" islamochristians as Hanan Ashrawi. At this point, despite the clear attacks on Christians in both Gaza and in the "West Bank" in such places as Bethlehem, its Christian population dimidiated in the little-more-than-a-decade of rule under the "Palestinian Authority." See what foreign clergymen have reported about Bethlehem, see what the bravest Arab Christians have dared to testify to about their treatment at the hands of "fellow" but Muslim "Palestinians."

If the war against Israel is seen, properly, as a Lesser Jihad, then all those wasted efforts at shuttle diplomacy, and negotiations, and peace-processing, and final photo ops in the Rose Garden while the photographers swarm, and the phony handshakes and phony smiles are exchanged, will come to an end, and the true peacekeeper in the Middle East -- that is the IDF, and its ability to prevent, or respond to, or punish, military aggression -- will be recognized, and the principle not of treaties (for there is no "pacta sunt servanda" in the Muslim world - treaties are not to be obeyed, but to be disobeyed, to be breached, by the Muslim side, whenever that becomes possible), but of Darura.

This understanding of the war against Israel as a Lesser Jihad, prompted by the immutable texts and tenets of Islam, not only has the virtue of being true, but also will help others, especially in Western Europe, become more aware of the threat that Islam, through demographic conquest and Da'wa, poses to their own countries: the fate of Israel and the fate of many countries in Western Europe is one, even if many in those countries, and certainly their ruling elites, do not wish to recognize that, for it makes for all kinds of unpleasantness and responsibilities and duties one would rather avoid. But such a recognition is a necessary prelude or accompaniment to girding various national loins in preparation for a large-scale effort to halt and reverse the Muslim advance, through demographic conquest in the lands of Western Europe, ) its leaders more corrupt. That's it. Its hideous goals remain the same.

The black-balaclav'ed Kalashnikov-clutching bezonians goosestepping in Ramallah, and called "Islamic Jihad" or "Al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade" -- two groups that will benefit, being tied to Fatah, by the turning on of the tap of European and American Jizyah -- are little different, are in fact no different, from the black-balaclav'ed Kalashnikov-clutching bezonians goosestepping triumphantly in Gaza City.

They are peas in the same damn pod. They are like the Bloods and the Crips. If the Bloods were to promise to be just a little bit less gruesome in their behavior than the Crips, or perhaps agree to give up dealing in one particular drug, would that mean we should fall all over them, let incarcerated leaders of the Bloods out of jail (as one Israeli idiotically suggests should be done for Mahmoud Barghouti,currently serving time for five murders of Israeli civlians, in order to "strengthen Fatah"), and pile on the money, from everywhere, just to show how fond we are of this group of b-b K-c b's as they goosestep about?

No. For god's sake, no.

Would you like your head cut off quickly, or slowly?

Hamas.

Fatah.

Next step:

Life restrictions on Pakistan.

After all, 9-11 was all the way back in 2001.

Now, now, people...
we must endorse "kinder, gentler" terrorists...

(now where've I heard that before?)
(total sarcasm)

Many of the Bush administrations decisions (like its decision to recognize Kosovo's 'sovereignty')have been truly outrageous, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic and quite deadly to long-range US interests.

But if you think American dhimmi-cracy is bad now under Bush and Company (and it IS-- we're NOT imagining things), just wait until a Democrat retakes the White House!

The Democrats are probably set to get a president in the White house in 2008 (due in part to the Republican party's present spectacular corruption and ineptitude) who will be the worst dhimmi we Americans have EVER seen. (Especially if it's Barack Obama who is a black MUSLIM!!!!!!!!!!!).

God help us.

And deliver us from Islam!!!!!!!!!!

Many of the Bush Administration's decisions (like its decision to recognize Kosovo's 'sovereignty')have been truly outrageous, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic and quite deadly to long-range US interests.

But if you think American dhimmi-cracy is bad now under Bush and Company (and it IS-- we're NOT imagining things), just wait until the Democrats re-takes the White House!

The Democrats are probably set to get a president in the White house in 2008 (due in part to the Republican party's present spectacular corruption and ineptitude) who will be the worst dhimmi we Americans have EVER seen. (Especially if it's Barack Obama who is a black MUSLIM that lies to the US public about being a Muslim!!!!!!!!!!!).

God help us.

And deliver us from Islam!!!!!!!!!!

Is this going to increase the influx of refugees to be 'resettled' in the US and other western infidel countries?